Douglass Cassel

Douglass Cassel – Notre Dame Presidential Fellow, Emeritus; Emeritus Professor of Law, and Kellogg Institute Faculty Fellow – is a scholar, practitioner and commentator on international human rights law, specializing in issues of business and human rights, regional human rights systems, and international criminal and humanitarian law. Following his retirement from notre dame in 2018, he serves as counsel on matters of business and human rights to the global law firm of King & Spalding. His scholarly articles in English and Spanish are published in the United States, Latin America and Europe, and he lectures at universities and conferences worldwide. On behalf of retired United States diplomats, and leading experts on international law, he has filed several amicus curiae briefs in the United States Supreme Court involving the rights of prisoners at Guantanamo and accountability for human rights violations under the Alien Tort Claims Act. He has represented victims of human rights violations in Colombia, Cuba, Guatemala, Peru and Venezuela, and appeared as an expert witness, in cases before the Inter-American Commission and Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Cassel has served as consultant to Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos on matters of transitional justice in the peace negotiations with the FARC guerrillas; Legal Advisor to the United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador; Executive Council member of the American Society of International Law; co-chair of the International Committee of the Board of Directors of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Chair of the Independent International Panel on Alleged Collusion in Sectarian Killings in Northern Ireland; and consultant to the Department of State, Department of Justice, Ford Foundation, the President of the American Bar Association, and non-governmental human rights organizations. In 2000, 2003, 2012 AND 2015, he was nominated by the US Government and elected by the Organization of American States to four-year terms on the Board of the Justice Studies Center of the Americas, of which he was elected President during 2002-04 and again during 2014-2016. He served as President of the Due Process of Law Foundation ("DPLF"), based in Washington, D.C., from 2000 to 2012. Cassel is also an award-winning commentator. Until 2012 his regular commentaries on human rights were broadcast on Chicago Public Radio and published in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. His commentaries have also appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, Christian Century, and other publications.